


heart eclipsed by the dark (tiniest of sparks)

by theriveroflight



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Alternate Universe, Assassins & Hitmen, Challenge Response, Endgame Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Minor Character Death, On the Run, Past Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug/Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir, is the closest, it's complicated - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:01:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26413063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theriveroflight/pseuds/theriveroflight
Summary: After the worst of catastrophes, the two come together.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Alya Césaire/Nino Lahiffe/Kagami Tsurugi, Alya Césaire & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug & Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Nino Lahiffe, Luka Couffaine & Kagami Tsurugi, Luka Couffaine/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 8
Kudos: 29
Collections: LBSCSprintFicChallenge





	heart eclipsed by the dark (tiniest of sparks)

**Author's Note:**

> So...it appears that Lukanette for me only happens in AUs.
> 
> This was written for the Lovebugs & Snake Charmers Sprint Fic Challenge, in which writers took three 15 minute sprints to get out a story, with an additional 24 hours to edit. I did two out of three of the sprints yesterday (9/10) and one today (9/11). 
> 
> The prompt I selected was “As long as I’m next to you, I don’t care”.
> 
> Title from "Shine" from the RWBY Volume 2 soundtrack.

They don’t have teams anymore. Marinette led a team. Luka wasn’t the leader. But their teams had all scattered to the winds, their respective crews gone.

And they used to be rivals.

Marinette and Luka only have each other as the remnants of everything that went wrong. One might think that they would leave each other. That they wouldn’t want to stick together, that they would just remind each other of what they lost. But the truth is they found each other  _ because  _ of what happened. They’ve both lost so much; the only ones they have left… 

If they don’t have each other, they don’t have anyone. So being with someone that you could blame for the loss is…significantly better than being alone.

And besides that — they’re both fleeing the respective parties they worked for after everything fell apart. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend,” and all that. They don’t have anyone left to trust. The agencies they worked for told the police, so they’re on the run from the entire world.

And, of course, they’re found. Someone catches a glimpse and turns them in, or something else, just to put them on the run.

Police officers point their guns. “What’s the plan, Marinette?” Luka asks, nervous.

They stand back to back. “We’re not going down tonight,” she says, raising her makeshift Plexiglass shield and her shotgun next to it. “Not now.”

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Luka Couffaine. Drop your weapons!” one of the officers orders, likely the head.

Marinette shoots for the foot. Incapacitate, not kill. She’s done with killing. No matter what. She doesn’t want to do it again. She  _ refuses  _ to go back to how she was with the team. Because as much as she doesn’t regret meeting them, she does regret the lives that they took together.

And they use the gaps in the lines to run, fast and swift, Luka grasping onto Marinette’s wrist tightly.

“Are you okay?” she says when they get a break, having sufficiently confused everyone into not following them anymore.

“I am. But it doesn’t matter. As long as I’m next to you, I don’t care.”

She smiles, the edges of her eyes developing tears. “You  _ stupid romantic idiot,  _ now is not the time.”

“You’re the one who interpreted it that way,” he teases.

Her gaze hardens as a distant siren goes off. “We gotta go.”

And they’re running again. They make it away from the city proper without being caught, and they both get to breathe a sigh of relief.

(Marinette almost regret stepping foot in the city to begin with, because she knows that all they’re doing is chasing ghosts that may or may not exist. But even for a second, if Alya or Adrien or Nino or Kagami survived that explosion, both of them are going to try and find them.)

(And...and there were rumors, for sure.)

“It’s a shame the whispers turned out to be false,” Luka murmurs, voice low as they take shelter under an overpass, cars whistling by.

“They might have been planted.”

“What, youre saying that they would purposefully manipulate the rumor mill to get us to come?”

“They want us dead. Because…”

“I got it.” Luka snaps his fingers. “They want us dead  _ because  _ we survived. There was never supposed to be anyone there. They wanted to manipulate us into fighting…”

“Only to rig the explosion to try and kill all eight of us.”

“So...who was manipulating it?”

“I don’t know. Which agency had more to lose by taking out their best team against us?”

“Well…yours did. You and Adrien and Alya and Nino were  _ great.  _ You had some of the greatest chemistry as a team of killers.”

“I know.” Marinette’s voice shakes with grief. “I miss them. But with them gone, I had the chance to know you, and I wouldn’t give that up for a moment. I miss them every day. But just because…just because I’m interested in you doesn’t mean that I’ve forgotten what I had with the three of them. It’s different.  _ You’re  _ different. And…”

“And?”

The atmosphere between them is electric, even as they’re both sitting on the ground, about a third of a meter between them.

“I love you,” she breathes, looking away.

“I love you too,” he says, racing out to pull her into a hug. It’s loose and messy and they’re simultaneously too close and not close enough.

“I was never as close with any of my teammates as you were with them. I didn’t know you used to be romantically involved, but it makes sense from what little I knew of the four of you. I was  _ closest  _ to Kagami. The four of us — with Aurore and Mireille — were working together because we were placed together, but Aurore and Mireille were always kind of distant from the rest of us. Kagami and I were ‘the spares’ around them. They were one heck of a power couple — but they also left us behind. Team of four, you know? I want them to have survived, but I don’t want them to have gone through what we did.”

“Your agency did it, I think. Your team doesn’t...it had the same level of reputation, but the interpersonal relationship between teammates makes a team so much stronger if it’s more than neutral.”

“We had…less to lose if they sacrificed our team.”

“Yeah. And based on what I’ve heard…it was easy for them to make that sacrifice. They only care about how well-oiled their machine is, statistics and kill rates and numbers. They don’t care about you as people.”

“They kept us around. They gave me a place.”

“That’s true. And I don’t think any one company that hires out assassin teams is less moral than the other. Mine was pretty awful too.”

“When you put it that way…yeah, there really isn’t a point debating.”

She nods.

“Congratulations, you two.”

A voice that neither of them ever thought they’d hear again. They separate from their hasty embrace to look at the person standing before them.

“Alya?” Marinette asks.

“Hey girl.” Alya fires off a salute. “Good to see you’re alive.”

“It-it’s good to see that you are, too.” Marinette hugs Alya, fierce and deep. “Do you  _ know  _ how…” She trails off, unable to finish. “Is the rest of the team alive?”

“Adrien and Nino are.” Alya looks over at Luka. “And so is Kagami. Aurore and Mireille...actually died.”

“How did you survive?” Luka asks.

“They told Adrien that they weren’t sure about Marinette’s loyalty. They were the ones who were setting it up, putting out a hunt so big that you guys would have to send out your best. They told us not to die, and that they had a spy planted on the other side that would join us and Adrien would be team leader.”

Marinette sighs. “I should have been more careful.” She harbored — and still harbors — anti-agency sentiment, but she can be a lot louder about it now.

“Adrien didn’t want to tell you. Nino did. I sided with Adrien, because I was sure that you would survive whatever they threw at you. And you survived. I’m  _ so happy  _ that you did.”

“Where are they?” she asks. “And who was the spy?”

“Kagami,” Luka declares, snapping his fingers. “It  _ had  _ to be. Aurore and Mireille were die-hard loyal. They were practically raised by my old bosses. And it explains why Kagami was never close to them.”

Alya nods. “You picked a smart one, Mari.”

“Yeah. No...hard feelings?”

“It’s been over a year.” Alya shakes her head. “I don’t mind. Adrien, Nino, and I have each other — and we have Kagami now. Ironic that it still ended up how they wanted.”

“But I’m still alive. And I wasn’t supposed to survive.”

“Neither was I.”

“Well. Most of us are alive. Want me to take you to the other three? They stayed behind. But when I heard rumors of  _ our own  _ location, and I heard about the bounty on both of your heads, I knew that you would risk getting caught to know. I offered to go alone and see if I could pick you two up. We’ve been chasing you for a while. And we’ve finally found you.”

“How far are you from here?” Marinette asks.

“It’s a couple day’s walk, but I brought a vehicle, so it’s just a few hours away.”

They’re...only a few hours away from the people they thought were dead.

“What do you think, Luka?”

“It would be good to see Kagami again, and I would like to meet your teammates. You speak of them highly. But I don’t think I want to stick with them.”

“I...agree. I want to get our names cleared. And to me, it doesn’t matter where we go as long as we’re together.” She takes his hand. “So. Let’s go for the reunion, and then work on fixing the mess created.”

Alya nods. “I’ll take you out to the vehicle.”

They get in the vehicle and ride into the forest. 

Not everything’s perfect. The world still thinks that Marinette and Luka have done something unspeakable to get them in trouble. But they have each other, and they have knowledge of how the people they worked for turned against them.

They’re prepared to take on the world — together, and in love. 

**Author's Note:**

> Follow me elsewhere:
> 
> writing Tumblr -- beunforgotten  
> main Tumblr -- alto-tenure  
> Twitter (inactive) -- riverofliight
> 
> And check out my other Lukanette oneshot, ["footfalls echo in the memory"](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25576930).


End file.
